As the Academy Awards approach, let's explore the origins of those strange job titles that scroll by during movie credits. We'll get help from Richard Weiner's book "The Skinny about Best Boys, Dollies, ...

Grab your cudgel, mate! We're plunging into the origins of "donnybrook," "brouhaha" and "ruckus." And, because experts disagree about the sources of some of these words, you can expect a real hair-pulling match as disputatious amateurs and ...

Q. When did "based on" morph into "based off"? When I was teaching, I heard my students say it a lot, e.g., "This movie was based off the book." I just saw it in print for the first time: "Two toys based off Walt Disney's hit animated film..." ...